If this was intended to be another cruel joke perpetrated by Mother Nature, Garrett Knight found little if any humor in it.

Knight, the third-year head boys’ basketball coach at Lugoff-Elgin, felt his team was ready to try and pull off their second upset of the week when Dutch Fork was scheduled to come to the Demons Den for a Region 4-4A pairing last Friday night. But the possibility of icy roads led to the game’s being pushed back to Monday.

On an evening in which the outside conditions were more favorable than they were four nights earlier, the end result was not what Knight and the Demons were looking for. Using a 27-point performance from junior guard Jordan Davis, Dutch Fork used a 27-point performance from junior guard Jordan Davis, Dutch Fork left the West Wateree with a 63-48 victory.

The loss came six nights after the Demons scored their first conference win of the season in topping visiting Ridge View, 67-64.

Having the weekend off did little to help add to the momentum which L-E had built on the heels of last Tuesday’s effort. While acknowledging that fact, Knight refused to use it as an excuse for his team’s play Monday night.

“I definitely thought that we were more ready for them (last) Friday night. We definitely wanted to play that game then,” Knight said. “But we’re 1-4 in the region with another round coming up. Hopefully, we can make a little noise down the stretch.”

The Demons were within striking distance on two occasions in the third quarter. The first came when Kevon Roberson’s floater from inside the paint area in the opening half-minute of the second half drew the hosts within 24-20. The Silver Foxes, though, responded with 10 unanswered points with the 6-foot-3 Davis scoring the first five before Bryson Cannon’s 3-point jumper helped boost the advantage to 34-20 with less than five minutes to go in the third.

Cannon would drain two more 3-balls in the third, the second of which made it 42-25 at the 3:28 mark. The lead mushroomed to 47-29 when two Wells stickbacks were followed by a Davis trey and a Will Hancock putback.

Dutch Fork head coach Matt Brown gave several of his starters --- including Davis and Cannon --- a breather to assure they would be ready to go in the fourth quarter. Bradwin Salmond, however, had other plans.

Salmond, L-E’s 6-foot-3 sophomore forward, knocked down three consecutive shots from beyond the arch in the closing 41 seconds of a third quarter. Thanks to Salmond’s long-distance show, the hosts climbed back in this one, trailing 48-39 heading into the final stanza.

“We finished the third quarter strong with Bradwin hitting those three 3-pointers,” Knight said. “We had a bunch of 50-50 balls which didn’t go our way tonight. We just couldn’t cut the lead to where we needed to in order to get back in the ballgame.”

L-E chopped a point off the nine-point deficit with a short jumper from junior center Elliott Campbell which made it 49-41 with 7:21 showing on the game clock. But after a rest on the bench, Davis came back and hit a 10-foot jumper and then putting back a missed shot to make it 53-41 with six-minutes and change left. The Demons would not recover from there and would not get within double figures the rest of the way.

The combination of Cannon’s three buckets from long-distance and eight points from Davis, the Silver Fox combo accounted for 17 of their team’s 24 points in the decisive third quarter.

“I think Jordan Davis was too good down the stretch. He kept leaking out and getting those fast-break layups that we didn’t have an answer for,” Knight said. “And (Cannon) was knocking down some huge threes and before you knew it, the lead was up to 17 points. After that, we started throwing up threes at the end of the game and we couldn’t get back in it.”

The Demons went to-to-toe with the Silver Foxes for the first 16 minutes.

The first of five treys from Salmond, who led the Demons with 17 points, put the hosts on top, 6-5, at the 4:43 juncture of the first quarter. A five-foot runner from Davis and then his steal and layin from point-blank range followed by a Salmond 3-point jumper returned the lead to the Demons at 11-9 in a first quarter when finished in an 11-all stalemate following Deuce Dean’s baseline drive in which he lofted a shot over the outstretched arms of Campbell.

L-E opened the game in a 1-3-1 defensive scheme with Salmond on top as the chaser. The set worked well for several possessions before Davis helped shoot the Demons out of it and into a 2-3 alignment after scoring on a pair of baseline drives in the second quarter. Davis’ latter bucket would give the Silver Foxes a 19-13 lead which forced Knight to use a timeout to change things up on the defensive end of the floor.

“We tried a little bit of everything,” Knight said of his switching up the defenses. “We had good success with our 1-3-1 in the first half but then, they started finding that backside wing guy open. We went to the 2-3 zone and they started picking that apart so we had to man up.”

The Demons drew to within a point thanks to a 5-0 run which opened with a Campbell free throw which led to Wells grabbing a rebound and going coast-to-coast for a layin. Salmond’s layin on the run out cut the margin to 19-18 with 61 ticks left in the first quarter clock.

Davis made sure the Silver Foxes had a bit of a cushion at intermission as he stuck a five-foot jumper from inside the paint and added three free throws all in the closing 48 seconds of a first half which ended with the visitors carrying a 24-18 lead into the locker room.

The Demons employed a pair of zone sets on defense, so too did Dutch Fork which stayed in a 2-3 scheme. While Salmond was able to shoot over the zone, Knight said his team was impatient in trying to work the ball inside to Campbell who finished with three baskets and nine points.

“They packed their zone in tight and Elliott really couldn’t do what he wanted to do,” Knight said of his team’s struggles on offense. “We were shooting too many threes tonight and we weren’t working the ball inside enough which cost us in the second half.

“Give credit to Dutch Fork, though, they have a great ball team and they worked the ball around better on offense than we did tonight. They deserved to win.”